Ausdroid’s Best of 2015 — Help us choose the best

It’s been a fascinating year in mobile, and we’ve seen so many contenders for the best ‘x’ of the year that it’s hard to pick. There were some choices more obvious than others, but really, there have been a lot of strong contenders that really are hard to choose between.

We’re going to announce our staff picks in due course, but we need your help to decide the more prestigious of the two awards categories, and that’s our readers choices. This year we’re looking for the best phone of the year, best smartwatch and best manufacturer.

For the first time, we’re not going to consider the best tablet of the year, because frankly we don’t think there have been many worthy contenders in 2015. From what we’ve seen, Google’s Pixel C tablet is probably going to be the best thing to happen in Android tablets for some years, but it isn’t released yet, and we’re not likely to have enough time with it before the end of the year to declare it the best.

There’s tough decisions to be made, and we need your help. Please help us out, and we’ll announce the winners soon. We’re also doing a bit of a giveaway, but this one’s a lucky dip; you can go into the draw to win some of our giveaway stuff, with actual prizes to be announced later! Be quick; we’re only running this poll for a week; it closes at 5pm on Friday 11 December 2015.

Chris Rowland Editor and Publisher

Chris has been at the forefront of smartphone reporting in Australia since smartphones were a thing, and has used mobile phones since they came with giant lead-acid batteries that were "transportable" and were carried in a shoulder bag. He saw the transition from AMPS to GSM, loved the Motorola StarTac, and got into Palm technologies in a big way. The arrival some years later of the original iPhone, and then the early Androids, awoke a new interest in mobile technology, and Chris has been writing about it since.

Today, Chris publishes one of Australia's most popular technology websites, Ausdroid. His interests include mobile (of course), as well as connected technology and how it can make all our lives easier.

Not on our end, no. It’s a good phone, to be sure, but is it one of the best phones of the year? Not compared to the Nexus 6P, and not compared to some of the other phones that featured highly. We’re happy to be corrected, but honestly, as good as it is, it’s not close to being the best of the year.

I actually had the X Play on the list because I thought it was a fantastic phone; a big battery, a big screen, and it was tough as nails. It was something new and different, whereas the Style really wasn’t (personal opinion there). The major killer feature there was the amazing battery.

Nope, we’re leaving out devices that aren’t generally available and aren’t — in our assessment — candidates for phone of the year. That’s our job. Each of the phones we’ve listed could be phone of the year. Moto X Style wouldn’t.

The 5X isn’t really midrange, up the 808 is a high end processor with two less cores than the 810. I kind of assimilate the 5X to the Z5 Compact in regards to power and that thing has a 720p display and I still don’t consider that midrange.

The Nexus 5X could be described as a super midrange. It’s definitely not a high-end phone, because next to the 6P, Samsung Note 5 etc, it doesn’t stack up. It’s basically an LG G4 in Nexus clothing, minus the G4’s amazing camera, its big battery and its sexy leather case.

So it’s not really that much of a G4, except it uses the same chipset 😉